‘1 stinking shot:’ Only $201 separated these two pros from playoff bids

While the 2025 FedEx Cup Playoffs ended months ago, a new pro golf post-season is about to begin: the PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Playoffs. The regular season ended Sunday at the SAS Championship, the last chance pros had to sneak into the top 72 to earn a spot in the first play-off event.

Former PGA Tour and current PGA Tour Champions players Kirk Triplett and Brandt Jobe went to trial opposite sides of the bubbleat 72 and 73 respectively. It was a harsh reality for Jobe, made even more difficult by the shockingly low income that kept him from a spot in the playoffs: just $201.

Brandt Jobe is bubble boy of the Champions Tour play-off: ‘Can I curse?’

Jobe has had a long career with the PGA Tour Champions. He acknowledged that this also applies to his post-tournament press conference on Sunday at Prestonwood CC, in the wake of his painful play-off elimination.

“This is my tenth year, so I’m very lucky. Tenth year without really having had a clear path and I’ve had a clear path, so I can’t be disappointed,” Jobe said on Sunday. “I remember coming here and saying if you give me five years that would be great, and I got 10. If next year’s 10 tournaments, 12 tournaments, whatever they are, embrace it and hopefully build on the last few months of what I did.”

His frustration at being eliminated from the Charles Schwab Playoffs before they even started became clearer with the first words he said during his press conference.

“Can I swear?”

His mood was understandable. Jobe, who is 60, has four second-place finishes and $9 million in earnings during his PGA Tour career. He added two wins on the PGA Tour Champions, most recently at the 2019 Boeing Classic.

But this season, and this week, did not go as Jobe had hoped. He played in 17 tournaments in 2025 and only managed one top 10 finish. A T61 finish (eight over) at the SAS Championship earned him $221,861 in official money for the year.

On the PGA Tour Champions, every dollar won is worth one point in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. So Jobe’s $221,861 was equivalent to 221,861 points. That put him in 73rd place, one spot shy of the first playoff event, next week’s Dominion Energy Charity Classic.

Triplett, the last man in 72nd place, finished with $222,062 in official money, or 222,062 points. Jobe was only $201 dollars short of making the playoffs, a difference of 0.1%.

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Kirk Triplett narrowly sneaks into the PGA Tour Champions playoffs

Triplett, 63, has eight career PGA Tour Champions victories, although he has not entered the winner’s circle since a two-win streak in 2019. In total, he has raked in $11,972,995 on the senior circuit.

In his PGA Tour career, Triplett won three times and finished with more than $14 million in course winnings.

But his gains in 2025 were minuscule in comparison. In 22 starts, Triplett failed to post a top 10 and took home $222,206. But it was good enough to beat Jobe and make the Charles Schwab Playoffs, and the significance of that performance was evident from his comments after the round on Sunday.

“I hate to say it, but it’s the most meaningful golf I’ve played this season,” Triplett said. “I’ve just been 40th, 50th. My best results are in the 20s and 30s. I don’t play well, but I don’t manage my game well and I don’t compete well and all those things snowball. I look around, I don’t see many guys older than me doing it, so you know there’s a reason for this, right, because otherwise, when you get tired, I think it’s just energy. You’ve done it this long, you’ve been successful.”

The small margin by which he defeated Jobe was not lost on Triplett either, which he said amounted to “one stinking shot” over the course of the season.

“This is the thing, right?” said Triplet. “You’re playing 22 events. $200? Me and my partner are at the team championship and I decide – he says, ‘I’m going to catch a flight,’ right? I decide to back out because it’s just inconvenient, I don’t want to miss my flight. There’s a couple thousand out there that would get me three spots. So the little decisions you make like that. And if you’re a Monday morning quarterback in this game, man. I tell all these young players I’m talking there often, I say, ‘Do you really want to see something interesting? Take a shot at the score every day and see how much money, what a difference that makes at the end of the year. One stinking shot, one stinking shot. ”

The competition between Triplett and Jobe ultimately came down to Sunday’s final round. The one who finished higher would take the last spot in the playoffs, and the other would go home with no chance of earning their PGA Tour Champions card for next season.

“Hey, it’s dirty out there, get out there and whoever gives up first is probably going to lose. I don’t think Brandt either [Jobe] or I gave up,” Triplett said Sunday. “You should have seen us, we played together on Friday, we didn’t look like two guys who could break 80 two days in a row. I mean, we were terrible. So we both conjured up something that at least came down the stretch.

While Jobe’s 2025 campaign is over, Triplett continues to play. But he still has plenty of work left to earn his playing rights before 2026. Triplett will have to play well enough next week to improve his ranking to 54th to qualify for the Simmons Bank Championship, the second playoff event.

From there the task becomes more difficult. Only the top 36 players in the rankings will qualify for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship Playoff Final to earn their 2026 PGA Tour Champions cards.